Persephone's Orchard (The Chrysomelia Stories) by Molly Ringle Read Free Book Online Page A

or street lamp sparkled anywhere around them. It really did seem to be a world free of humans.
    She shivered in the cold air. The wind, though not as strong as it should have been, still hit hard and stripped away the summer warmth from above the land. No wonder Adrian had buttoned up his coat. She shook open the blanket and wrapped it around herself. The blanket’s wool felt scratchy against her hands and neck, but it took the chill off.
    “So before you started hanging out with ghosts, where did you live?” she asked. “Australia?”
    “Close.”
    “New Zealand?”
    He glanced halfway in her direction, not meeting her gaze, then looked forward again.
    The insight sparked to life in her mind with a jolt. “Adrian from New Zealand,” she said. “ Kiwi Ade ?”
    He held his spine stiff. “I was going to tell you.”
    “Why didn’t you tell me right off the bat, the other day?” she said, infuriated.
    “I didn’t want you to go looking me up, sending police to my house, anything like that.”
    “I thought you said the police were no threat,” she accused. “You said you could hide out over here and they’d never find you.”
    “I could, and they wouldn’t. But it’d cause a lot of worry for my dad, and I’d rather not have a police record even if no one does find me.”
    “So you follow my blog. That’s why you decided to come steal me?”
    “No. I—”
    “All these months we were posting nice comments back and forth, you were planning on how you’d reel me in with your weird skills?” Why it angered her, she couldn’t say. It wasn’t like he could have explained to her about this other world and his weird skills. But the dishonesty and sneakiness still creeped her out and made her genuinely angry.
    Adrian huffed out a short breath. “You make it sound like I found you on the Internet and got obsessed and decided to stalk you. That’s not how it is at all.”
    “Then why don’t you tell me how it is?” She scooted farther from him, and in his agitation, he let her.
    “Trust me and wait, all right?” Adrian said.
    “Trust you? That’s—”
    The bus jolted; possibly the horses were dodging a hill. Sophie’s seatbelt unsnapped itself, and she toppled over, catching a frightening glimpse of dark hills rolling past beneath the open door before Adrian yanked her back up. Even in her terror, she noticed he lifted her with seemingly no effort at all, just as Nikolaos had.
    “For God’s sake, stay close.” He sounded scared, if gruff. He held her firmly, this time with his arm all the way around her. The steel grip of his muscles lightened to a warm human hold. The scent of his skin, swirling around her in the wind, somehow made her feel calmer. And, after all, he had just saved her.
    She sucked in a deep breath, refastened her seatbelt, and leaned back on his shoulder.
    “Is super-strength one of your abilities?” she asked, as her heart slowed down from its mad gallop.
    “Yeah,” he answered, but didn’t elaborate.
    Stars by the thousands gleamed in the sky. The bus pitched over the next range of hills, then leveled out again over the lowlands.
    She stayed silent, still processing the fact that this was her online friend Kiwi Ade, now with her arm close around her, carrying her away in a flying bus drawn by spirit horses.
    Adrian seemed to be thinking along the same lines. “You’re important to me,” he finally said, “for reasons far beyond your blog. And I know that sounds insane and stalkerish, but I promise you’ll understand eventually. If you choose to.”
    “If I choose to?”
    “It’s your next decision.”
    One more mountain range passed beneath them, in a bumpy swath and a breath of pine-scented air. Then the land gave way to ocean, and the smell of saltwater drenched her nose. The bus ride smoothed out flat again. They shot forward through the star-strewn darkness like a comet. Adrian stayed silent, his arm around Sophie.
    A glow beside the carriage caught her